


Kassandra

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Female Tony Stark, Fix-It of Sorts, Ghosts, Mutant Tony Stark, Mythology References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-07-21 05:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19996537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: Tony stood by and watched, knew each step, bowed her head to the pain that didn't hurt any less just because she knew it was coming. But standing here, facing down Thanos after all she'd done everything she was supposed to, her grip slipped, her restraint snapped and everything she'd tried to hide burst free.





	Kassandra

"I asked him for the power to protect my people, to become one of his oracles." She said, looking up at the setting sun. "He gave it to me. When I turned to leave, he demanded I repay him, that I give him my body. That wasn't our deal, so when he tried to take it, I backed away. Even gods can't take back their gifts, but that didn't mean I escaped him."

"What did you do?" The girl at her feet asked. 

"I went back home and had my first vision. When I told Priam, he didn't believe me." She swallowed. "I turned to Hector, Paris, Aeneas, Andromache, even Helen. They . . . They laughed. They laughed and said I was foolish, that poor dreams pass with the waking. I realized what Apollo had done and panic overcame me. I had to warn them, I knew the truth. Apollo indeed had given me foresight, but in his spite, had taken credibility from my lips. Simply because I spoke didn't mean anyone would hear me."

"What happened after?"

"I woke to my city on fire." She choked back the tears. "By my hair, the Greeks dragged me into the street, into a square."

The girl's voice was even softer. "What then?"

She cupped her neck, the last feeling forever etched into what remained of her. "Once they were done with me, they cut off my head."

"Is that what's going to happen to me?"

She looked down at dark hair and eyes shining in terrified tears. "No. Your power doesn't belong to Apollo. But be careful. No one will believe you when you speak the future either. I don't want you to become another Kassandra of Troy."

* * *

Tony had stood by all these years and watched the world spin. She stepped like she was supposed to, fell when her cue came. She took the destined beating and stood under the world, compounded by all the corpses she was responsible for. She cried herself to sleep when she could, haunted by how much worse the Sceptre had made it. 

She had hidden it all at her guide's request, sealed everything that made her different away. She saw the Mutant Registration Act come up, and she gave it the final nudge to make it fail. She never let it go. Never let anyone see. 

The vision was borrowed, brought on by the woman couchsurfing in her head. But her own power . . . that was dangerous. She'd only used it once, when JARVIS sprang to life under her fingertips and answered her sweetly for the first time. The Sceptre had made her use it on Ultron, and she'd been quiet about what, exactly, merging Ultron's code with JARVIS would do. 

She tried to warn them, when Ultron happened. She tried, against what Kassandra told her to. And just like Kassandra said, no one listened to her. No one cared what she was trying to do, who she was trying to save. 

She'd let the world burn because _she was supposed to_. Strange had seen the future possibilities, but she knew what was supposed to happen. She was shown the truth from the beginning, not the chances. She went into space, genuinely did try to stop him on Titan, but failed just as she knew she would. 

Now, standing here, in the ruins of the compound _minutes_ after successfully restoring the world _like she was supposed to_ , she faces down someone who's not supposed to be here, to exist. He broke the rules and her head throbs with the rearrangement of the future. Kassandra writhes in agony, her screaming almost drowning out whatever it is Steve and Thor say. 

But she tries, like she always does. She tries to save the world because that's who she is. She walks cursed footsteps, but she'll take the suffering if it means everyone gets to go home. What has to happen has to happen, she's learned and accepted that. 

It's not until Thanos has her gauntlet in his hand, the Stones flaring brightly and dangerously. And all at once, the harrowing ability she's kept compressed deep in her psyche makes her see white, like being blinded. 

She stretches out her hand, so broken and tired, so sick of _losing_.

His body stiffens and with a snarl, she rips out his soul. 

With a venomous sneer, she watches as the grey essence shatters. Kassandra peers out her eyes. 

_"What have you done?"_

She lets out the screams that have sat in her throat for fifty years, shattering across the battlefield with their power. 

_"Tony, no-"_ Kassandra tries, but the beast inside of her is loose and she can't hear the dead woman over its roar of triumph. 

She feels it under her skin, feels it revel in being free, shrugging off their chains. 

She lashes out at whatever's closest to her, binding them with invisible tethers, and pulls. Their bodies collapse, lifeless like marionettes with cut strings. She brings them inside herself, crushing them under her will and feeding the starving animal inside her. She can reach further, and she does. She begins to walk towards them, her steps quickening but she doesn't even register that she's running, let alone how fast. She doesn't care that under her boots, the earth shatters and kicks up leaving craters in her wake. She doesn't pay attention as she breaks through the front lines where Avengers and Chitauri clash. She slams into the beasts and tears through them with the same careless rage a tank round would pass through paper. 

She reaches out with her hands, draining them manually and crushing their souls between her fingers. The magician who had threatened Stephen turns on her with a sneer, but she doesn't register it before his throat is in her hand and she takes the immense energy he had stored within him. He crumbles to dust, but it hardly matters. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the other continue to battle, sees the sickly red flair of Wanda's power. 

_Wanda._

_"Tony, stop!"_ Kassandra pleads, but she chooses to ignore her. With the hunger satiated, she's coming back to herself more, but she makes a decision this time. 

"Wanda." She breathes, turning to stare at the girl. "You think anyone would fear your power?"

Wanda is across the field and can't hear her. As the mindless creatures scrabble toward her, they fall as soon as they get within five meters of her. Her aura is thick like mortar smoke, and the air around her is deathly still. The Chitauri form a barrier as they hit her projection, falling lifeless atop each other. 

"What power?" She hisses, feeling years worth of anger and resentment boil up inside of her. "What power do you even have to fear? You're not even as powerful as the woman you're a poor imitation of. Genosha already has the one HYDRA really wanted."

She lets the energy rush over her and pulls enough of it together to reform the one she loved the most, the one she forsook to allow this future to play out as it was _supposed to_. 

"Sir." He says when his feet touch the ground. He seems surprised, which is so familiar that it seeps warmth back into her freezing heart. 

"Hi, J." She says through watery eyes, reaching out to touch his face for the first time. Her beloved JARVIS. "Feel up to kicking some ass with me?"

"Always, sir." He replies. He is attached to her, will feed off the energy she takes from the enemies she punishes. With this army at her disposal, she'll power him for fifty lifetimes. 

She wells up all the times she's ever wanted to save a life, to end a life, to change the past and the future and lets it go in one massive shockwave that tears up flesh and earth as it goes. Jarvis shoots off to the sky, blue and bright and glorious as the day she first ran his code. He does what she did, flying into the mouth of the floating eels and exploding them into a shower of seared meat and sizzling metal plating. 

She takes off across the battlefield, sweeping up all the souls before they can escape her. She hears their calls for mercy, but gives them none. She flies above the battlefield, in plain view of everyone, and stretches out as far as she can go. It gives her a headache, but she pushes. She clenches the tethers in her fists, the invisible strings lighting up the same ashen grey of their souls. It looks like roiling smoke over the battlefield, culminating with the magma bubbling at the tip of the volcano. 

_"Don't be cruel!"_ Kassandra tries, showing her the fear and distrust her comrades would treat her with after, how their terror would alienate her. 

"At least this time, they'll have a reason." She says to the ghost, shoving her into the cage her power had formerly been confined to. "What else can they take from me?"

She pulls the tethers tight and lets the molten slide of her rage, hatred and betrayal slide down them, the burning lava of her ability consuming Thanos' army from the inside out. She doesn't care that they're in anguish, on fire but unable to put it out, just like she doesn't care if she ever sees Steve again. She's done hiding, done trying to be better and being broken for it. She consumes what she doesn't destroy of their bodies and lives. Above her, Jarvis destroys the battleship and it slowly falls to earth, limp and cold. 

Thanos' army blows away in the wind, reduced to dust. She took everything but the very matter that made them.

She lands with a gentle puff of air, Jarvis at her side. 

"Tony . . ."

She turns to face Steve, Thor, Clint and the others. Sees the shock and horror on Pepper and Rhodey. She sees the terror on Wanda's face. 

Steve swallows, wading into the piles of dust that were once living beings. "How long have you been able to do that?"

"I'm a mutant." She spits at him, the bile of her anger still stinging her throat. She'll never be able to trust him ever again, and she doesn't plan to try. He doesn't deserve it. "I always have been."

"What do you do?"

"I can give life." She looks to Jarvis, who smiles placidly back at her. "Or I can take it. Not really complicated."

"And you never used it?"

She gives him a deadpan look. "I just did."

"That's not what I-"

"Get away from me, Rogers." She turns away, feeling lifetimes worth of energy buzzing along her senses. 

_"You scared them."_ Kassandra chides. 

"They're alive to be scared!" She barks, feeling the ghost recoil. "They can hate me all they fucking want! They already do!"

"Tony, we don't hate you-" Steve goes to put his hand on her shoulder, but she slaps him away.

"I don't want your gift! I don't want to see!" She screams, grabbing at her own hair. "No one listens!"

 _"You listen!"_ Kassandra argues. _"That's why I need you! You listen!"_

"And what the fuck good am I, huh?" The ground cracks and sinks under her, the force of her despair pushing it down. 

_"I couldn't save one city, but you just saved the world."_ Kassandra pushes back the furious clawing torment. 

"I don't care." She whispers.

"That's a lie." Steve says the same time that Kassandra does. 

She shoots him a glare. "Didn't pretend my life matters to you now. If it wasn't for this mutation, I would have died in Siberia. You don't care about me. I'm just a tool to you, useful but disposable. You're a filthy fucking liar, Rogers, from the second you stepped foot in a recruiter's office."

Steve's flinch is well deserved, but she takes no pleasure in it. She's never enjoyed hurting people. She's just numbed to it. Jarvis takes her hand. 

She takes flight again, Jarvis at her heel, and flies over to the gauntlet. She picks it up, plucking the Stones from the gauntlet. They sting, but she hands them to Jarvis and he doesn't flinch. 

"We're leaving." She says. 

"Of course." Jarvis never questions her. 

"Wait!" Rogers calls, but she ignores him.

 _"Don't leave it like this."_ Kassandra coaxes. 

"I've still got work to do." She replies, looking at the Stones. 

_"With him."_ Kassandra clarifies. 

"I'll deal with him later. I'm the only one trying to do this right, so I'm doing it my way from now on."

She signals to Jarvis and the two of them take off into the sky, leaving the smouldering ruins of the Avengers facility behind them. 

"What is your plan?" Jarvis asks. 

"I don't know yet." She sighs. "But if it's all on me, I'm going to make it worth it."

Kassandra says nothing, just watches her vision shift. The future is not supposed to be changed, and some things are inevitable even to the gods. But Tony is not their instrument - destiny is hers to craft, others be damned. 


End file.
